Corporate Social Responsibility of Toyota Csr.

MBA 562.7 Corporate Social Responsibility and Ethics

Corporate Social Responsibility of Toyota CSR

1. Introduction

CSR is an important business strategy because, wherever possible, consumers want to buy products from companies they trust; suppliers want to form business partnerships with companies they can rely on; employees want to work for companies they respect; and NGOs, increasingly, want to work together with companies seeking feasible solutions and innovations in areas of common concern. Satisfying each of these stakeholder groups allows companies to maximize their commitment to another important stakeholder group—their investors, who benefit most when the needs of these other stakeholder groups are being met

According to Gelbmann(2010) the importance of CSR has been increasingly recognized in modern enterprise. Small and medium enterprises all are featuring CSR performance, but they fail to gain competitive advantage out of it because they are unaware of the qualities of CSR. Gelbmann in his research paper mentioned two approaches of CSR: a) comprehensive scope which basically focus on Social, economic and environmental issues b) dynamic view which integrate the intangible resources such as capabilities and competencies. Other authors such as Haastrecht & Amiabel (2010) explained CSR as a balanced approach towards the concept of ‘value’. It is a weighted average of current wealth, welfare & future generations. CSR operation has been explained mostly with the views of two economists: Milton Friedman and Freeman. According to Friedman the only social responsibility of business is to generate profit. But Freeman emphasized that all stakeholders’ interest has to go together. According to freeman successful business is the one which is creating value for customers, suppliers, employees, communities and financiers. Decades of debate on corporate social responsibility (CSR) have resulted in a substantial body of literature offering a number of philosophies that despite real and relevant differences among their theoretical assumptions express consensus about the fundamental idea that business corporations have an obligation to work for social betterment (Geva, 2008).

1. Conduct a CSR Assessment

List of the current CSR approach

Toyota as a long-lasting company, has a well-built CSR approach towards its stakeholders. Its current CSR approach will be given below in order to distinguish what the company's current actions and if there are any gaps or missing parts that might be needed. (Obtained from Toyota CSR report 2017)

5 main principles of Toyota (from 1935 which embody the main principles of the company from then till now)

• Always be faithful to your duties, thereby contributing to the company and to the overall good.
•  Always be studious and creative, striving to stay ahead of the times.
•  Always be practical and avoid frivolousness.
•  Always strive to build a homelike atmosphere at work that is warm and friendly.
•  Always have respect for spiritual matters, and remember to be grateful at all times.

These are the guiding principles from 1992 till now.

• 1. Honor the language and spirit of the law of every nation and undertake open and fair business activities to be a good corporate citizen of the world.
• 2. Respect the culture and customs of every nation and contribute to economic and social development through corporate activities in their respective communities.
• 3. Dedicate our business to providing clean and safe products and to enhancing the quality of life everywhere through all of our activities.
• 4. Create and develop advanced technologies and provide outstanding products and services that fulfill the needs of customers worldwide.
• 5. Foster a corporate culture that enhances both individual creativity and the value of teamwork, while honoring mutual trust and respect between labor and management.
• 6. Pursue growth through harmony with the global community via innovative management.
• 7. Work with business partners in research and manufacture to achieve stable, long-term growth and mutual benefits, while keeping ourselves open to new partnerships

Creating a CSR Team

In coordination with the orders of the company, myself, Christophoros Hadjistasi and a group of colleagues have been asked to coordinate a CSR team to identify any future prospects, update any guidelines (if possible) and reexamine the current values in which the company is conducting.

Noting any gaps or possible updates to the CSR of Toyota

Our team, after hours of discussions and evaluating the current state of the CSR of Toyota, have decided to note the possible faults that may have been uncovered.

Note 1.

The initial guidelines that have been established from 1935 seem a little outdated but have a solid standing in our day and age at the same time. Under normal pretenses, the initial guidelines are solely based on the employee’s state, does not take into consideration the personal situation of the employee, the prerequisites of an employee environment. Noted changes: include a new terminology that does not have the word “always” which may or may not be to the employee’s capabilities at any given time due to unexpected personal events to the employee.

Note 2.

The guidelines of 1992 are more updated in the sense that the CSR objectives of the company are broader to the scope of the company’s influence on a worldwide scale. But to our team’s attention, we have distinguished a small paradox to the guidelines. Toyota as a world distributor and manufacturer of cars has not yet created a new vehicle which provides clean biproducts to its usage. Oil and benzine are the commonly used fossil fuels which are used by our products. Newer technologies, which are being created at the time of our report are already being made in the market which are cleaner and offer more services than our products. One such company is called Tesla, and this company will be analyzed as a future competitor to the industry.

Note 3.

The community contributions of Toyota may be more biased towards western cultures rather than as a whole. One observation of this is the company’s ability to help communities in western cultures, where as a current incident in Africa has given the company’s name for a War in the regions of Chad. As described by Tom White (www.carsguide.com.au), the Toyota war which was a war between Chad and Libya in 1983, has given the company a bad reputation and is continuing to do so in the areas of Africa which are under Islamic state controlled areas. This defamation of the company name must be stopped under our evaluation of the CSR report and certain techniques will be suggested.